Tenant Screening – The Key to Helping Tenants Avoid Eviction

PORTLAND, Ore. – Eviction is the top thing that most landlords and tenants hope to avoid. Thankfully, avoiding eviction is as simple as placing an increased emphasis on tenant screening.

If you don’t have many tenant screening measures in place, this article will provide you with tips you can use to start screening your tenants more professionally and ultimately avoid eviction.

Rental Criteria

Make sure you have a really good rental criteria set for your tenants. It needs to spell out exactly what a tenant needs in order to rent your property. This criteria is important and you have to provide it to all tenants and applicants. You cannot offer one thing to one tenant and then something different to another tenant. Treat all your tenants and applicants the same so you comply with fair housing laws.

Background Checks

You will need to run some very thorough and serious reports on the applicants who want to become tenants. Make sure you do a credit check and check for an eviction history. All of the information you gather needs to be checked against your rental criteria. These background checks will help you look for tenants who are qualified and honest.

Research and Verify

When an applicant gives you the completed application, make sure you check everything they say. Verify all the information on that application. This means you have to track down a complete rental history and talk to current and former landlords. You need to collect documentation on income, which may be in the form of pay stubs, so you can be sure they make as much money as they say they do.

Lease Agreement

You need to have an excellent lease agreement in place that will protect you and your property. Don’t just pull any lease agreement you find online. Get a lease from a qualified source and make sure you are protected all the way through the tenancy.

More Tenant Screening Tips

Besides the time-tested tenant screening tips mentioned in this article, some of the other tips for screening tenants in 2018 include:

Check out social media profiles. If you can find the applicant on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, take some time to scroll through their account. Does their information match their employment and residence history? Are there references to committing a crime or being incarcerated? Do they affiliate with any hate groups or gangs? Do they have questionable pizza topping preferences? (Just kidding.) Know the warning signs.

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